Life, After
by LucidKren
Summary: Naruto gets the life he wanted with Sasuke and Sakura. Set after "Selfish" and will be mostly slice of life/domestic type drabbles. NaruSasuSaku. OT3. Various genre.
1. Spiders and Metaphors

**Life, After**

 **Spiders and Metaphors**

Notes: This will be a series of drabbles set after "Selfish". More often than not they will have a domestic or fluff theme. _Warning_ : this particular chapter will have mention of spiders ( _spoiler warning_ : they die, if that makes you feel better). Also, standard disclaimers apply.

The house that stood before them resided on the edge of Konoha near training ground eight. The porch was sagging, the shoji door needed new paper, and at least one of the windows was broken. This was a house that had stood the test of time and more than one "Destruction of Konoha" events.

In other words, this was a house that endured.

It was also a bit of a fixer-upper.

Naruto thought it was a great metaphor for his relationship with Sasuke and Sakura.

They spent the entire day clearing out all the debris and dirt in the house. The inside had more damage than they thought too: Sakura's foot fell through the floor boards in the living room. Luckily only the living room had some bad planks and they were easy to remove. Removing and replacing the boards had eaten up the rest of the day, however, so they did not have time to move any of their furniture inside.

They were essentially camping in the bedroom with their sleeping bags.

It was definitely not what Naruto had in mind for their first night in their brand new house.

New houses needed christening.

The night was still young and held promise though…

Just as Naruto was about to entice his partners into something fun, he felt something crawling on him.

Naruto looked, and saw a spider. He smacked it. Then he spotted another one. Then two others. Then Naruto took a look around the room…and the room was covered in them!

"Sasuke, Sakura!"

"What? I'm trying to sleep…" Sasuke nearly growled.

Sakura pulled her bag over her face.

"We have a spider infestation!"

"Don't be dramatic, Naruto. One or two spiders do not an infestation make," Sakura replied, not bothering to look.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was now sitting up and glancing calculatingly around the room.

Naruto was unprepared for what came out of his mouth.

"We have to kill it with fire."

Maybe he heard wrong.

"Come again?"

Sakura jumped out of her sleeping bag and starting furiously wiping any possible spiders that could be on her off (there weren't any) accompanied by mutters of "Ew!" and "Gross!"

"Grab your sleeping bags," Sasuke directed, already standing and eyeing the room like it was full of the enemy.

Naruto blinked and followed the order…wait, was Sasuke going to seriously burn the room?

"Can't we just…y'know, use bug spray or something?"

Spiders weren't _that_ bad…

Sasuke was silent and led Naruto and Sakura out of the bedroom, then through the living room, and out of the house.

"C'mon Sasuke, tell me what's going on in your head! Sakura, help me out here!"

"…I'm kinda with Sasuke on this one."

Crazy people. He was in love with crazy people.

"Katon: Housen—

"Wait!" Naruto shouted, "think this through!"

"…You're right. Simple fire won't do."

Then Sasuke unleashed freakin' _Amaterasu_ on the house. Black unholy (but since Amaterasu was a god, didn't that actually make it divine? Naruto shook his head) flames ate away eagerly at the house.

"The house! You're burning down our house!" Naruto put his hand in his hair, slightly pulling on the blond tresses.

"It was a lost cause."

"How?! We could've fumigated!" Naruto turned to Sakura, "Why aren't you pissed?"

"I…kinda hated the house," she quietly admitted.

The fire crackled in the background.

"What?"

"Sasuke did too."

"Huh? Why didn't you guys say so before we bought it?"

"You seemed to like it," Sasuke said.

"I knew it had problems but I didn't think it was going to be so much work…On top of everything we saw when we got here, it also needed new wiring and the pipes needed fixing," Sakura confessed.

"So you used the spiders to get rid of the house?"

"It was the tipping point. I also…really hate spiders," Sasuke looked to the side at this last part, as if it pained him to admit.

Yeah, the house had been crappy…but it had been a metaphor! Sasuke and Sakura hated the metaphor. Sasuke burned down the metaphor. Does that mean this relationship was doomed to fail?

No! It absolutely wouldn't fail.

Naruto just needed to find a new metaphor.

Burned down house…scorched earth…new beginnings! They were moving on into a new era of their relationship. They would build their new life together on the old foundation.

Naruto could live with that. He liked 'new beginnings' a lot better than 'fixer-upper' anyway. Their mistakes were in the past.

His teammates were staring at him.

"You okay?" Sakura's eyes shined with concern.

"Yeah," Naruto grinned, "Just means we get to rebuild!"

"Right!" Sakura grinned. Sasuke also had a smile on his face.

Things would work out.

Now all they needed to do was find somewhere to sleep and do _other_ things. ('Cause sex was totally happening tonight. They had a new metaphor to celebrate, after all).

-fin-


	2. Quirks and Sentiment

**Quirks and Sentiment**

Naruto was sprawled on the grass, enjoying the warm breeze on a lazy Wednesday afternoon. The sky was vast, with great white clouds breaking up the blue.

 _Shikamaru was really on to something with this whole cloud watching business_ , he absently thought.

It had been two weeks since Sasuke burned down their fixer-upper house. Twelve days since Yamato agreed to grow them a new house on the old land. Since then, Naruto has been busy with different missions and work around the village. Sasuke and Sakura have also been busy with various duties; Sasuke at one point disappearing for five days, only saying it was something he had to take care of when asked what he had been up to.

Whatever. Sasuke could keep his secrets. If it was truly important, Naruto would eventually find out.

Even with as busy as they were, the team still found time together at home. Naruto learned some amusing and somewhat exasperating things about his partners-of-choice during this time.

It turned out Sakura was a complete slob with her shoes, leaving them where she kicks them off upon arriving home. She would then turn around and be completely frustrated with him if he left laundry on the floor instead of putting it in the basket. _Talk about double standards_ , Naruto inwardly laughed.

Sasuke, it was revealed, was completely anal about how clothing was folded. He would refold anything that wasn't folded correctly (in other words, wasn't folded the way **he** liked things to be folded). After testily refolding an entire basket's worth of clothing and towels, Sasuke banned both Naruto and Sakura from "helping" with that part of the chore. _All the power to him_.

Naruto supposed he surprised his partners too. After training with nature chakra so extensively, Naruto now had an instinct for how energy flowed. The odd result was he now really enjoyed the art of feng shui and put himself in charge of arranging the furniture in the house. Also the landscaping. He may have also dictated how the house should be designed. (Hey, if Yamato was going to custom grow them a house, it might as well be the Ultimate House of Awesome).

He may have gone a bit overboard with the planning, given how Sakura had looked like she wanted to drop kick him before Sasuke had intervened, taking her out for tea while telling Naruto to do whatever he wanted with the place.

Who would've thought that the Great Avenger would become the Great Peace Maker? Sasuke's intervention had given time for Sakura to cool her head and Naruto to finish his Masterpiece and now they all lived in the greatest one-with-nature house to ever be made.

Life was good.

"Naruto, lunch is ready!" Sakura called from within the house.

Naruto slowly eased himself up, a content smile on his face. He had a home with the two people in this world he cared about the most. Even if they were dirt poor, living life on the road as missing-nins he could be happy. As long as he had Sasuke and Sakura by his side, life would always be good.

Sasuke stood in doorway entrance, as if to say "You coming or not?"

Naruto hurried his pace, an even bigger smile on his face now. Sasuke just rolled his visible eye and slunk back into the house.

"Coming!"

Notes: I had a hard time figuring out how to end this one so my apologies if it comes out strained. Once again, Naruto is so sentimental. I have now mentally dubbed him the King of Sentiment. Maybe the next one won't be so schmoopy.

Leave a comment, please.


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